60 



THE WORLD OF LIFE 



CHAP. 



later added specimens have not been arranged for several years past." 

 But he adds, " As it now stands, there is a good representation of the 

 Trinidad flora." 



Mr. W. B. Broadway of Tobago, who has lived several years in 

 Trinidad and has studied its flora, informs me that from his own 

 observation he believes that many hundreds of additional species remain 

 to be collected ; and this is what we should expect, as the island is a 

 continental one ; while Jamaica, though larger, is almost oceanic in 

 character, and is therefore almost certain to have a less complete 

 representation of the tropical American flora than the former island. 



The great work on the flora of Mexico and Central 

 America deals, unfortunately for my present purpose, with 

 an area in which temperate and tropical, arid and humid 

 conditions are intermingled to a greater extent even than in 

 the case of British India already referred to. Mexico itself 

 comprises about four-fifths of the whole area, and nearly 

 half its surface is north of the tropic and is largely composed 

 of lofty plateaux and mountains. It thus supports a 

 vegetation of a generally warm-temperate, but rather arid 

 type ; and these same conditions with a similar flora also 

 prevail over the great plateau of southern Mexico. This 

 type of vegetation extends even farther south into the 

 uplands of Guatemala, so that we only get a wholly tropical 

 flora in the small southern section of the area from Nicaragua 

 to Panama. 



The following table of the twelve largest orders in the 

 whole flora will be of interest to compare with that of 

 British India : — 



Mexico and Central America (ii,688 species) 



368 



250 



230 



218 



214 



182 



The most remarkable feature in this table is the great 

 preponderance of Compositae characteristic of all the tem- 

 perate and alpine floras of America, and the presence of 

 Cactacese, Solanaceae, Piperaceae, and Malvaceae among the 

 1 2 predominant orders, the first of the four being confined 

 to America. 



